Searching by genre
Under catalog > > Resource Lists > > Add List > > Add to this List >> Select by Barcode
Updating the catalog has been my most dreaded part of this whole experience... I've read up on so many blogs of other schools who tackled the genrefication of their books, but there is not a consensus on the best way to make the books searchable by computer. Most of my students take a discovery method of finding books, but I still needed to have a way for myself, my assistant, teachers, and some students to look them up in the catalog. I figured while I was at it, I would also do some updating to the 'visual search' options, with the hopes it will inspire me to do more lessons this year on how to find resources in our catalog, and online too. Searching by genre Our school system uses Follett Destiny and from what I've observed, our students only search via keyword, title, or author. There's a really cool "visual search" option that allowed me to use the same labels from the books as search 'buttons.' When a student (or teacher) clicks on one of the images, they are brought to a list of all fiction titles that fall under that genre. These lists were created by scanning barcodes to resource lists that were titled according to the genre. It did take a couple hours to scan them by hand but I knew in the end, it would still be the fastest way to update the catalog, plus have a go-to list for specific genres. Be sure to mark your list as "public locally" so everyone can view them! Under catalog > > Resource Lists > > Add List > > Add to this List >> Select by Barcode Changing the Call number While there are several ways to change Destiny to accommodate Genre-based searching, I wanted the call number to be the identifier. It shows up immediately below the title of the book so it will quickly grab the attention of the patron, and will make it much easier to locate the book. When doing a batch update, you have the option to change the call number prefix (mostly F or FIC) to a one word genre identifier (Realistic or Mystery, etc.). This is where that list comes in handy! If you've scanned all your genres into their respective lists, this part will only take seconds! The first step is to go to "Catalog" then, "Update Copies" from the left menu, and finally, "Batch Update" from the top right tabs (see image below). Next, you need to select "Change Call Number Prefix to" and type in your genre. Then "Update all copes in: List" then select the corresponding resource list you created. Take a deep breath, double check you type the correct prefix + list, then hit the "Update" button! Viola ~ you've done it! And if you find some stragglers that some how didn't make the list (or you need to add new books!), this can be done using the title update option. When you find the title that needs to be updated, click on the "edit" tab and simply fill in the genre prefix for the F or FIC that was previously there (see image below). Be sure to add this book to your genre resource list so that it is still searchable using the visual search! It's important not to forget that step. So that's it for now! All in all, it took me less than a work day to scan the genre shelves and update the system. I have found a few books I accidentally skipped over, or were not shelved when I scanned so those are being updated individually. If you have a stack of one genre, you can always do the batch update option with a barcode list, but if you have several genres to cover, it's best to do an individual edit. If there are any suggestions on other ways to tackle the catalog part of genre, please add it in the comments or feel free to email me! The more we collaborate, the more we can get it 'right' for future genre-fiers!
1 Comment
Genese Mikkelsen
8/16/2017 03:28:18 pm
I'm a recently retired HS Librarian, and my daughter is a new MS Librarian. She is putting her fiction in genres and when we went to do this process, we attempted to change the Prefix to FIC MYSTERY. It was rejected with the message that this prefix does not exist. Where do we add the prefix or was it rejected because we had the space in the call number prefix?
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AuthorBeach girl. Archives
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